Monthly Archives: January 2009

Dragging its feet behind version 0.5.0 comes version 0.6.0 of Almanah. This release is primarily to improve upon the "link" concept which was present in all previous versions. Now, links have been replaced with the concept of a "definition": terms can be defined across multiple entries, to allow you to go into more detail about something which existed over a longer period of your life. For example, you could define a term for a project on which you'd been working for a couple of weeks, or for a new acquaintance. Currently, only the old link types (note, URI and file) are supported as definition types, but in future, other types will be added, such as Evolution contact.

This release also introduces "events", which are listed automatically per day. Now Almanah will list all the Evolution tasks and appointments relevant to the currently selected day, to provide a little more context for whatever's in that day's entry. Again, more event types can – and should – be added in future.

Apart from these major changes, accessibility and printing support have been improved, and a new --import-mode switch has been added to allow one-time imports of previous diaries without any date-based restrictions on editing entries.

Note that the link/definition/event changes have changed the database schema, and when upgrading to version 0.6.0, all your previous links will no longer be accessible from the interface, and cannot be automatically ported to being definitions. You can, however, retrieve them manually using the following commands:

sqlite3 ~/.local/share/diary.db

.headers ON

SELECT * FROM entry_links;

which will list all your old links as they exist in the database. You should run these commands while Almanah is running, unless you have encryption disabled.

With a new year comes a newly finished model. This time, it's a Chinook HC1 helicopter which I've been working on for just over six months. It's turned out quite well, and the pictures are up on Picasa. The only problem now is finding somewhere to house it which won't let it get disgustingly dusty.